now - 20-year-old Raquel's first book of poetry and short stories is published.

When Dwayne Mcduffie created the Superman-character for his new comic universe, he had a genius idea. Rather that ask that character to be the protagonist, he would use a separate character to play the lead and moral focus of the series, and allow his superhero to be the thing the protagonist is trying to influence. Icon is, as a result, a far more interested character than most other Superman allegory characters that have popped up across the comics landscape, but in addition to that Dwayne managed to produce one of the most fun and exciting sidekick characters in all of comics.

Raquel is, make no mistake, a sidekick. Her costume is an almost perfect amalgamation of contemporary sidekick characters. She has a single extremely useful power that is based entirely on her devotion to the character she sidekicks for. Even is this was ALL she was, she would be an excellent example of a sidekick done right. The fact that she carried the narrative weight of the series, however, elevates her to something way more interesting. She's the star. Even in a book named after a different character, it's her adventures we're following. Her conflicts and challenges are what bring us back to the book. She's also a young minority character that is being depicted as a complex and complete human being. She's a teenage single mother, but is never presented as a tragedy. That's not just rare in comics, but in pop culture in general.

Rocket appeared in the animated Young Justice series, and it was a fairly faithful representation. They made some changes to her costume, and you can argue that is was a more sucessful version than her usual blue jumpsuit and jacket combination, although I'd like to see someone take another pas at something that bridges her two looks and gives us something a bit more superhero-y.

Our version of Icon and Rocket is largely unchanged from the one appearing in comics, with one major difference. By making Icon a victim of the Daemonites, we can bring him, and of course, also Rocket, into the Elite. while they weren't Wildstorm characters originally they were born in the same era, and they both feel completely at home in that world.